more orthoptera

Out and about with my latest chum, the bat detector, trying to learn the calls of Orthoptera. Lots more Long Winged Coneheads all the way up the Swansea Valley as far as the old tip in Tawe Vale in any suitable grassland as described in the last post by me. Also found a lot singing to the west of Ashley Road playing fields in rough grassland behind the houses on the Mumbles Road. 3 were singing on grass besides the stream on the northern edge of the playing fields including this macropterous individual (supposed to be associated with spreading populations).

A visit to Pennard Golf Club allowed me to hear other species. Lots of Dark Bush Crickets (Pholidoptera griseoaptera) singing from bramble clumps. Field Grasshopper (Chorthippus brunneus), Meadow Grasshopper (Chorthippus parallelus) and Mottled Grasshopper (Myrmeleotettix maculatus) singing from low vegetation or bare ground on the golf course, the latter hard to hear on the bat detector. On the front slope of the cliffs at Shire Combe there was a large population of Grey Bush Crickets (Platycleis denticulata).

Another day I paid a visit to Welsh Moor to look for Bog Bush Cricket (Metrioptera brachyptera) and found a very large population of this and Short Winged Conehead (Conocephalus dorsalis) and realised that the bat detector was a good way to assess the population (of males) present as I only saw a few of the former (photo below) and none of the latter.

Further searches that day around Broadpool and on the north western margin of Fairwood Common only turned up Short Winged Coneheads in the more rushy areas.

A visit to Oxwich turned up Great Green Bush Cricket (Tettigonia viridissima, surprisingly from what I remember of the racket they make, I can't hear those either) and yet more Short Winged Coneheads. I also saw a pair of Lesser Marsh Grasshoppers (Chorthippus albomarginatus) but did not pick up any calling.

I suspect at Pennard I was also hearing lots of Speckled Bush Crickets (Leptophyes punctatissima) but am not yet confident enough to be sure without seeing them as well. I am now thus a born again bat detectorist, looks a very useful tool and you don't need a posh one, in fact they say a rudimentary one is better. Only problem is that the background hiss does my head in and it makes a terrible noise if you're moving, can't imagine what the orthoptera hear as you "sneak" up on them in the grass!